


Still in love with your ex

by Georgiathewholedaythrough



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, jonsa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-20 06:40:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11915295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Georgiathewholedaythrough/pseuds/Georgiathewholedaythrough
Summary: They'd broken up years ago and hadn't spoken since, so the thought of Jon Snow coming to the Stark lake house during the summer after so many years obviously bothers Sansa. But will it be the end of their relationship, or lack thereof, for good? Or will it provide her with a glimmer of hope? Stay tuned...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please like and comment if you enjoyed, comments always feed my soul and help with motivation.

Sansa is lounging on her bed as her music plays from her iPod in the background, eyes closed and humming along quietly, when Arya who is sitting beside her finally tells her. 

“Jon’s coming to the Lake House.”

Every year the elder Stark kids, along with their respective partners and a few of their friends; normally Theon, Ygritte, Sam, Gilly, Pyp and Jon, would venture out to the holiday house that had been in the Stark family for generations. They’d usually stay there for a week and a bit, and it was always a good time. Drinking, nightly swims, music and movies.  


But the past couple of years had been different. Ever since his break up with Sansa a few years ago, Jon hadn’t been there; always claiming that he had other plans, or he was busy – or so Sansa had heard, she hadn’t spoken to him for a very long time. 

So of course, when she hears the news her icy blue eyes immediately snap open and meet her sister’s brown ones. “What?!”

At least Arya has the decency to look somewhat sheepish. She knows what he’d meant to her – what he still meant to her (though she’ll be damned if she ever admits it aloud). Hell, the whole family knew what Jon Snow had meant to her. Even Robb who hadn’t been happy when they’d first started dating, and had remained best friends with Jon even after the break up, knew to tread carefully when going down that path with her. 

“Before you look for someone’s neck to wring, please bear in mind that I’m only the messenger and I only found out about this myself last night.”

Sansa lets out a heavy sigh and motions for her sister to quickly explain.

“Right, well, y’know how Gendry sometimes goes out drinking with Robb, Theon and Jon? Well, he was telling me that apparently they were all discussing holidays and Jon looked so heart wrenchingly sad that Robb invited him to come along and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Honestly, when he told me I almost called Robb up right there and then to ask what the hell he was thinking, but then I realised maybe this would be a good thing.” 

“A good thing for who?!”

“For all of us! Ever since you and Jon broke up, which has been well over 3 years can I add, everything has been off balance. We can’t invite Jon if we all want to go out with you, and we can’t invite you if we want to go out with Jon; and the rare chance that we are all together, you two have to be separated because for some reason you can’t go fifteen minutes without arguing with each other.” 

Sansa opens her mouth to refute her sister’s claims, but she knows deep down that they’re true and it makes her feel ridiculously guilty; the fact that her and Jon’s breakup had had such an impact on everyone else. It was never supposed to be that way. “Maybe I just won’t go this year then, I do have a lot of work to catch up on.”  


Almost instantly Arya’s eyes narrow into slits, and if looks could kill Sansa is pretty sure she’d be ash. “I’m your sister, and I love you and will always have your back, but if you don’t come to the lake house because Jon is coming, sevens help me I will wring /your/ neck.”

“More like sevens help me,” Sansa mutters to herself, before flopping over and burying her face into her pillow so she can let out a much-needed groan. 

\----------------

A few days later, sitting on the comfy sofas at her favourite coffee shop, Sansa re-narrates the conversation to her best friend Margaery.

“Maybe it is a good thing,” her best friend surmises after Sansa finishes, her hands wrapped around a steaming hot mug of coffee.

Sansa shoots her a scathing looks and takes a bite out of her lemon cake. “Honestly, where is the bloody loyalty?! First Arya, now you.”

“Sweetheart look, I know you loved him and thought you guys were going to be forever, so the idea of seeing him again terrifies you, but maybe this will be the closure you need to finally move on.”

“I have moved on.”

Her best friend shoots her an incredulous look. “Joffrey was a cunt, he doesn’t count.”

Any other time Sansa would rather stab herself in the eye with a fork than defend Joffrey, but for the sake of this conversation she feels she must. “How does he not count? I was with him for quite some time after Jon.” 

“He doesn’t count because one, he was a cunt, two, he was a cunt, and three he was more of a rebound than anything. Rebounds don’t really count as moving on.”

Sansa grumbles under her breath and swiftly steers the conversation to another topic; though even as Margaery responds just as enthusiastically as before, her thoughts aren’t really on her - they’re suddenly on an infuriatingly handsome and brooding man, and she hates how easily he's able to infiltrate her mind.

\-----------------

“Still not talking to me, Sans?” Robb asks the following evening after they’ve all finished dinner, and him and Arya are helping her clear things away in the kitchen. Though it’s more like she’s clearing the plates away into the dishwasher, Arya’s too busy watching Robb’s failing attempt to talk to her, and Robb just will not shut up and leave her be. 

She pauses what she’s doing for only a few seconds before continuing to clear up, earning her a muffled chuckle from her younger sister.

“Oh come on,” Robb exclaims, throwing his hands up in exasperation, “you can’t just ignore me forever.”

A biting remark sits on the edge of Sansa’s tongue, but she manages to hold herself back. Barely. 

After realising he's getting nowhere with her he turns to their younger sister. “Arya, tell her she’s being childish.”

Sansa’s eyes automatically skim over to her sister so she can shoot her a warning glare, and usually Arya remains undeterred by Sansa’s glares, she’s more than grown used to them throughout her childhood, but it’s different now. Their whole relationship is different now. “I am not saying a thing, big brother.”

“Hm, betrayal sucks like a little bitch, doesn’t it?” Sansa states frighteningly airy, and she doesn’t say it directly /to/ Robb, but at the same time there’s no one else it could be aimed at.

“I didn’t betray you,” he splutters out, the outrage at the accusation in his voice is obvious.

Sansa finally turns to face him and gets a small jolt of satisfaction when he flinches back at the look she shoots him. “Oh, so what do you call it when you invite someone on a holiday behind your sister’s back, someone who your sister no longer speaks with and is not on good terms with?”

Robb’s face goes red, but from embarrassment or anger Sansa isn’t sure. Probably both. “I didn’t do it behind your back, and I didn’t betray you, I was being a friend to someone who has had a fuckawful year. Not that you would know anything about that!”

Arya cuts in then, with a look and a warningly low, “Robb.”

Something painful shifts in Sansa’s chest. It hurts her that Jon was going through something difficult and she hadn’t been there for him like she’d said she’d always would be. The thought makes the anger she feels disintegrate. 

“You could have at least told me yourself Robb, and preferably as soon as you’d invited him.”

Her brother sighs and moves towards her, his arms going around her slim frame before she even realises. “I thought if you found out sooner you’d make up some silly excuse for why you couldn’t come, and I just wanted us all to hang out together like we used to. Before it gets too late, y'know?”

Her own arms reach up to encircle him and she sighs into the crook of his neck, even though a part of her is still annoyed with it, she can’t stand a sad Robb. Robb and sadness should not go together. “It’ll be fine," she mumbles against his shirt, "everything will be fine.” 

She means to pull away so she can head upstairs and pack, the trip is tomorrow morning and Sansa has suffered from the disease known as procrastination all week, but Robb’s arms tighten around her and so she stays in his arms a little longer. He whispers quietly into her ear so that Arya can’t hear. “I’m on your side too, I always will be.”

There shouldn’t even be sides, the bitter thought comes to Sansa, but she pushes it down and instead smiles softly.

“I know big brother, I know.”

\--------------

The next morning comes quicker than she likes and Sansa is nowhere near prepared. She is not at all a morning person, and yet this trip has her waking up at the ugly hour of 6am. If that’s not enough, the pressure to choose something simple yet enhancing increases when she receives a few ‘hurry your pretty ass up’ texts from Margaery, who she assumes is here and waiting, and if even Margaery was ready and waiting for her, well then… 

With a huff, she throws on a loose, white sleeved t-shirt and a pair of black jeans, and finishes the look off with a pair of knee high boots and her leather jacket, before picking up both her suitcase and handbag and then making her way down the stairs. 

She’s careful not to wake up her parents and two younger brothers, who are happily still asleep, as she makes her way out of the house and into the bitter cold, where she’s met with several sleepy but excited eyes and a chorus of soft greetings.

“Finally!” Theon creeps out from somewhere she hadn’t noticed, and throws an arm around her shoulders, “we were beginning to think you weren’t gonna show.” 

“Of course I was gonna show, you idiot.” 

“Ouch,” Theon says, clutching playfully at his chest, “you wound me, dear Sansa.”

She shrugs. “It’s early,” she says, as if that’s some sort of justification.

Before long everyone’s starting to stuff their bags into the back of the Stark’s family car, and it’s only then that Sansa realises Jon isn’t with them. With a frown she grabs Arya, who’s busy talking to Gendry about something, and whispers to her. “I thought Jon was coming?”

Her sister scowls at her, irritation clear on her face at being pulled away from her boyfriend, and replies, “He is.” Then mortifyingly she shouts Robb’s name, and when he turns to her with an arched brow, she asks. “Where is Jon?”

Robb is just about to answer when a car suddenly pulls up at the house and Sansa instantly recognises it as Jon’s. She stares totally entranced as he gets out of the car and walks round to the boot to get his case, before giving a little wave and making his way over to the rest of them. 

Holy fuck. He’d always been gorgeous, but it was ridiculous how good he looked right now. It was almost as if he’d woken up and purposefully decided to torture her even more by making sure he looked simply delicious. From the way he was dressed in a denim shirt, which showed evidence of him working out, to the way his curly brown hair was scraped back into a man bun, and his scruffy beard that Sansa’s mind suddenly (and rather traitorously) remembers the feel of from between her legs. 

Again, she repeats, holy /fuck/.

It takes her a few minutes to realise she’s still staring and holding on rather tightly to her sister, so she quickly drops her hand and averts her gaze. 

But then suddenly he’s in front of her, wearing that cologne she’d loved so much, and giving her a small but guarded smile, and she momentarily forgets how to breathe or think. All sorts of memories come crashing back into her head and it takes her longer than usual to realise he's talking to her. 

“Sansa. How are you?” He asks. Such a simple question and yet it has her mind racing and her heart beat going erratic. She’d forgotten how attractively deep his voice was, how just him speaking had been enough to get her off so many times. 

“Oh, me? I’m – I’m good,” she manages to stammer out, “Not fully awake yet, but…” she trails off a bit awkwardly.

To her shock he lets out a soft chuckle, which sounds kind of nervous to her ears, and scratches at his beard. “No, you were never one for early mornings, were you?”  
She’s even more shocked when she manages a little laugh, “You remembered that, did you?”

“I remember everything about you, Princess.”

She can tell by the slightly shocked and apologetic look on his face that he hadn’t meant to say any of that, and that the nickname had just slipped from his lips like it had so many times before; but it still hits her somewhere deep, and all of a sudden Sansa doesn’t know whether she wants to cry or pull him into her arms and never let go. Both, she thinks, both would be good. 

He swallows thickly before opening his mouth to speak, “I’m sorry, I didn't –”

She cuts him off with a shake of her head. “It’s fine, Jon. I’ll just…” she trails off once more and points to Robb, as if he’ll automatically understand what she means. Though knowing him he probably will, he was always so in sync with her and vice versa. 

Jon nods, his eyes staring intensely at her and cheeks still red from embarrassment. “Right, yeah, of course.”

She nods and gives him a small smile before wandering over to her brother.

Just....holy fuck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter up for grabs. I wrote and rewrote the final section so many times that my eyes almost went cross eyed, lol. Please comment on what you like, maybe even what you don't like so much, and just any thoughts you might have. Thanks once again :)

“So, have you talked to him yet?” Ygritte asks a couple of days later when her and Sansa are the only ones by the pool, her feet wading in the water while Sansa floats on her back near her legs. Everyone else either inside watching the game that’s on, or getting up to who knows what sort of trouble.

Sansa keeps her eyes closed as she replies, purposely feigning confusion because she knows how much it irritates the woman beside her. “I’m not quite sure I know this ‘him’ that you’re talking about?”

Ygritte splashes her with water in response, and Sansa bursts out laughing as she shifts from her previous position and moves forward to brace her arms on the side of the pool, but not before giving her friend a playful shove back.

While Sansa had known mostly all her friends since high school, some even way before i.e. Theon, it was only in more recent years through Jon that they’d all met Ygritte. At first the two women hadn’t quite seen eye to eye and Sansa had initially thought it was because Ygritte was Jon’s ex and could tell of Sansa’s feelings for him; but then after a girl’s night in, where Margaery had forced them into a room to talk it all out, Ygritte had assured her that that wasn’t the case, and ever since then they’d been close.

Her friend continues to watch her, amusement and a little bit of irritation written across her face. “You’re way too smart to be playing dumb, Stark.”

Sansa rolls her eyes before resting her chin on her arm and shrugging, finally deciding to answer the question seriously. “We’re being civil with each other, I think that’s the most either of us can wish for at the moment.” 

Ygritte says nothing for a while, before eventually shaking her head whilst letting out a long-suffering sigh. “You’re both as stubborn as you are pretty.”

“You do know the only thing I’m taking from that is that you think I’m pretty, right?”

The woman in question huffs, but her lips twitch as if she’s fighting back a smile. “Of course you would.”

Sansa grins brightly, and just as she’s about to duck back down into the water she sees Margaery approaching them, her whole body flushed and in a black swimsuit that does wonders for her curves, an interesting looking cocktail in her hand. She greets the both of them before taking a seat by Sansa’s side. 

Ygritte takes one look at her and says rather wryly. “Well, hasn’t someone been fucked good and proper.”

“Oh my gosh,” Sansa cringes, it’ll never stop being weird to hear her friends talking about her brother in such a way. Margaery’s wink and long sip of her cocktail is the only answer they get. But that in itself tells them plenty.

“By the way,” Margaery suddenly says, “the guys are thinking of going for a hike later on in the afternoon when the match finishes. Are you guys in?”

“Wait a second, you actually managed to steal Robb away from the middle of a football game? Nice.” 

“Well honey,” Margaery purrs at Ygritte, “when a woman has needs she must have them sorted to almost immediately. A happy girlfriend is a happy life.”

“I’ll agree with that,” Ygritte says, watching her friend with a new-found respect. “So, when’s the match finishing?”

“2 or 2:30. Robb says the trail is only twenty minutes away from here, so it won’t be too late.”

“Cool, count me in” Ygritte declares, pushing herself off the edge of the wall and slipping into the water. She winces a little at the coldness of it and then quickly emerges herself into it.

“What about you?” Margaery nudges Sansa, and as much as she would love to stay back because hiking really isn’t her thing, she finds herself nodding because she’s never been one to back down from a challenge and she definitely will not start now.

“It’ll be good,” her friend promises, smiling reassuringly at her. 

Sansa doesn’t quite believe her but she doesn’t vocalise her doubts either, instead she returns the smile before pulling away from the side and ducking down into the refreshingly cool water. 

\-------------------

Several hours later she finds herself bitterly regretting her earlier choice. Everyone seems to be handling the hike just fine, even Gilly who under normal circumstances would be keeping her company at the back, is happily chatting with Jon, Pyp and Sam near the front. Sevens, Sansa thinks, she really needs to start working out with Brienne again. 

Out of nowhere Theon suddenly pulls away from the rest of them and falls back to walk alongside her, she braces herself for the oncoming teasing that’s bound to happen because it seems he just cannot help himself when it comes to teasing her. 

“You alright there, Sans?” He asks, a cheeky and knowing look on his face, and she’d do anything to be able to wipe it off his face. She’s pretty sure it’s obvious to everyone and their dog that she is clearly not alright doing this. 

She scowls at him and replies rather breathlessly. “Piss off.”

He blinks for a few and then pouts at her, and Sansa would feel bad if she didn’t know Theon too well. “You wound me again, Princess Sansa.”

She wrinkles her nose at the use of Jon’s nickname coming from Theon’s mouth, because even though they’d all started calling her it before he had, he made it seem less like teasing and more like a warm sign of love and affection. Unfortunately for her though, Theon happens to pick up on her reaction. “What, you don’t like it when it’s not coming from a certain brooding man, with a scar by his eye and an expression like he’s constantly battling with the whole world?”

Sansa bristles at that. “When we reach the top of this hill I’m going to push you back down it, just so you’re aware.”

If he’s bothered by her threat he doesn’t show it, instead he lets out a low chuckle. “At the rate you’re going, my dear Sansa, by the time you finally reach the top the rest of us would be on our way down.”

She narrows her eyes, and before Theon’s aware of what’s going on she’s swatting at him repeatedly and ignoring his loud laughs and cries for mercy as he tries to dodge her oncoming attacks. “Bloody hell,” he shouts over to Arya, who much like the others has suddenly stopped to watch what is going on between the two of them. “Are you not gonna come and restrain your sister?”

Arya pretends to consider his question for a good few seconds before she shakes her head with a grin. “Nope, I’m sure whatever it is you deserve it.” 

Theon scoffs and rolls his eyes. The Stark girls, he can’t help but think, as feisty together as they are apart. And before Sansa can get one on him again, he bends down and wraps his arms around her upper legs, quickly lifting her up and throwing her over his shoulder, before marching on forward with a suddenly wide grin of his own and a protective arm around her. Once he moves again everyone takes it as a sign to carry on forward. 

“Theon!” Sansa groans, whacking at his back and drawing out a laugh from him. “I don’t even know why I’m friends with you.” 

“My good looks and charming personality?” He suggests cheekily.

Sansa scoffs at the same time as Ygritte jumps in with, “You have about as much charm as a drowned rat.” 

“You see Ygritte,” Theon begins, in that familiar tone Sansa recognises as he’s about to talk some serious shit, and she braces herself for the comment that will ultimately end his demise, “I’d be more hurt by that statement if you hadn’t said something completely different last night.” 

Sansa arches a brow as she twists her head over to look at Ygritte, who looks equal parts irritated and embarrassed. “Oh fuck off, Greyjoy.”

He tuts playfully and shakes his head slowly. “What ugly words coming from such a usually pretty mouth.” 

Margaery’s eyes widen and she chokes out a startled laugh, turning to face her friend with both brows raised suggestively. “Really? You and Theon?”

Ygritte glares murderously at her for a split second and then turns that angry glare towards the man responsible. “I will kill you.”

Sansa lifts her head up again and tries to keep her expression nonchalant. “Nuh uh, I have dibs on killing him first.”

“We can do it together then,” her red headed friend says, the expression on her face still murderous but less so than before.

She nods once, satisfied with the plan. “Together.”

“Careful Stark, don’t forget who’s carrying you up here and who could easily drop you at any time.”

Robb suddenly reaches forward and gives Theon’s free shoulder a light squeeze, his tone teasing but at the same time partly serious. “You drop my sister, Greyjoy, and I’ll be killing you too.”

Sansa bursts out into giggles and raises her hand up to high five Robb, who looks utterly proud of himself for being able to make his young sister laugh.

Just as she’s turning her head away from her brother she feels an intense gaze on her, and she doesn’t really need to look to see who it belongs to, but she does anyway and when their eyes meet she feels the pull of her lips tugging upwards into a faint smile. When Jon gives her a small smile back she feels a warmth spreading in her stomach.

Pyp’s voice drags her away from this shared look between them. “You’re gonna be fucked mate.” 

“In more ways than one maybe,” Sam’s chimes in quietly, and maybe because it’s Sam who says it - Sam who is probably the purest one out of all of them and who is usually very private about such intimate matters, but everyone can’t help but burst out laughing. 

Twenty minutes later as Sansa stands at the top of the hill; the breath-taking scenery all around her, and the summer sun shining down on her and some of the people she loves most in the world, she beings to thinks that maybe Margaery had been right after all.

\--------------------

That evening when they’re back at the house, the tv serving as background noise whilst bottles of cider or beer are being passed around and several slices of pepperoni pizza are being divvied up, Sansa begins to think that maybe Jon coming on this trip wasn’t actually a bad idea, but little does she know how that thought process will be shattered so soon.

It starts to go wrong when his phone rings and interrupts the flow of conversation that’s going on. He takes one look at the caller ID and almost instantly his jaw tightens and a shadow of anger crosses his face, which automatically tells Sansa that there’s something truly wrong because she can count on one hand the amount of times she’s seen him become mad so quickly. 

He quietly excuses himself from the room and she watches him with concern in her eyes, just as she suspects the rest of them do. She hears the front door open and slam shut and a part of her so desperately wants to go after him and see what’s wrong, but then she realises that she’d given away that privilege of knowing him when she’d left, and the realisation glues her to the sofa. 

She still remembers the day it all happened. The hurt and frighteningly vulnerable look in his eyes when he’d come back to their flat and had seen her suitcases in the middle of the living room. The deflated and worn out way his shoulders had sagged when she had told him rather icily that it was over. He’d begged her not to go, tried to get her to look at him even as she argued that it’d be the best for them, and that he deserved something more than the arguments. Somehow she’d been able to hold back the tears that threatened to fall and had left him there, looking so lost and broken. One and a half years they’d been together and it had all been over in less than thirty minutes. 

At first her family and friends had begged her to tell them what had happened, what had gone wrong between them. But she couldn’t think about it without wanting to curl up in a ball and cry, and so even though it took a while, eventually people stopped asking about it and instead were very careful when mentioning Jon in Sansa’s presence.

She doesn’t think she’ll ever fully forgive herself for ending things the way she had done. There was just something about seeing Jon hurting that always managed to tug so strongly at her heart, so much that it was as if she was feeling the pain too. 

This is why after nearly thirty minutes go slip by and there’s still no sign from him, Sansa gets up from her comfy position in-between Arya and Gilly, and goes to find out what’s happened to him. 

He’s sitting on the bottom step, his hands clasped tightly together and his mind so obviously far away that he doesn’t realise she’s there until she sits down beside him and hesitantly puts a hand over his knee. Sansa feels him tense under her touch but he doesn’t say anything, and to be honest she doesn’t expect him to, he’s never been one for sharing his problems so easily.

“Jon,” she whispers softly, so softly that even she isn’t quite sure she’s spoken, not until he’s looking at her with those piercing brown eyes and she finds herself unable to even think or speak properly. They stare at each for what feels like hours, but is probably just minutes, until she breaks away first and looks down at the ground.

“I know it - it’s probably difficult to believe, especially after everything that’s happened between us. But if there’s anything I can do to help, or at least help with then please know I’d be more than happy to do it.”

She feels his heavy gaze on her for a while longer before eventually he speaks, and when he does it breaks her heart all over again. “Aye, it is difficult to believe.”

Sansa looks up at him, and as much as she might think she deserves it, it’s still hard to hear. She tries to reach out for his hand but he pulls away and then stands up altogether, moving away from the steps and further into the night air. 

“Jon,” she breathes out and moves to follow him, her voice shaky as she annoyingly feels herself near tears, though she know this isn’t about her. Not really. She grabs onto his arm, forcing him to turn and look at her. “You have to know how much I cared, how much I’ll always care about you.”

He snorts, and the sound comes out so harsh and ugly that she flinches back. “If you cared you wouldn’t have treated us like it was something so easy for you to leave, you wouldn’t have treated me like I was so easy to leave.”

Sansa shakes her head and holds up a finger to stop him, her voice coming out soft but sharp, a clear warning for him to tread carefully. “I’m not doing this with you tonight, Jon. I came out here to see if you were okay.”

Jon’s eyes blaze with anger, his cheeks flushing with a mixture of frustration and the cool air around them. He doesn’t raise his voice at her, though Sansa can tell from the twitch in his jaw that he’s trying to restrain himself, and somehow it makes things worse. “Oh aye, how considerate of you, and here I am being the inconsiderate one.”

She tries to take his hand again so she can try and soothe this rage in him, but when he pulls back from her once more she just wants to shout out in frustration at what they’ve now become to each other. “I thought I was doing the right thing, Jon,” Sansa cries out, “I didn’t think about the rest of it!” 

His expression only darkens at her words, and the little bit of control he has crumbles as his voice finally rises. “The right thing for who? Because it sure as hell wasn’t the right thing for me.”

She finally loses her own grip on the little shred of self-restraint she had, and she meets his loud voice easily. “Seven hells Jon, we were arguing all the time about the same thing, over and over and over again. Look at me and honestly say you weren’t sick of the fights, of the nights spent in separate rooms.”

“So you just decided to up and leave?!”

“Yes I did,” Sansa hisses out, her own cheeks now flush with anger and her heart thumping heavily in her chest, “and I would have done it again, because just imagine how much worse things might have ended up if I hadn’t?!”

Jon steps back and shakes his head, a cold and humourless laugh falling from his mouth as he turns round and she’s left glaring angrily at his back. And Sansa doesn’t know what possesses her to say what she says next, because she’d told herself she’d never bring it up again, but maybe it’s seeing how much Jon thinks she doesn’t care that pushes her over the edge. 

“How can you stand there and say I never cared, that I walked away from us so easily, when at the very least you couldn’t even return my bloody calls?!”

She knows her words have the desired effect on him because he freezes and almost instantly turns around to face her. A light frown creasing his face and his voice frustratingly desperate when he asks. “What are you talking about?”

“Seriously?” Sansa scoffs at him. “You’re going to act as if you didn’t see my calls? That’s just pathetic, Jon.” But when she tries to turn away his hand quickly reaches out and grabs her upper arm, preventing her from doing so and tugging her into him. Her traitorous eyes drift down to his lips before meeting his gaze head on.

“I didn’t get any of your calls,” he says, and there’s a startling softness to the desperation in his voice that wasn’t there before. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“I called you and you didn’t pick up but /she/ did, and she did a really good job telling me how better off you were without me and how much you’ve moved on. After that I didn’t call again.”

“Who?” He demands.

“Who the hell do you think, Jon?" She explodes all over again. "Who else would say such things like that to me?” The lost look on his face winds her up even more, and before she realises what she’s saying the words are already out of her mouth before she can stop them. “Sevens help you, Jon, you really do know nothing.” 

And with that she pulls her arm out from his grip and marches back into the house, ignoring the sound of her name coming from his lips. 

She pushes the front door open with ease and she’s about to head up the stairs when the sight of her sister makes her stop. The look on Arya’s face is one filled with sympathy and guilt at overhearing a conversation that was never meant for her ears, but before her sister can say anything Sansa rushes up the stairs to her bedroom and slams the door shut after her. 

It’s only when she’s under her duvet, her day clothes swapped for her silky pyjamas that always make her feel a bit better after a difficult day, and her door locked from anyone who might want to come into her room, does she finally let herself fall apart. 

Sansa dreams about Jon that night. And just to twist the knife a bit deeper and fuck her emotions up even more, it’s one of those dreams that plays on her heart’s deepest desires and makes everything seem so believably real, that when she wakes up and remembers that everything fed to her was a lie, it somehow manages to devastate her even more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait for this chapter, but I hope you enjoy it. And as always, please comment if you enjoyed and give me any feedback you might have. I love reading your notes.

Sansa spends the rest of the morning and a bit of the afternoon in her room, comfortably tucked under her duvet, and a film streaming from Netflix on her iPad. It’s not that she’s hiding from everyone – even though that’s exactly what she’s doing, she just doesn’t want to talk about last night, and as much as she loves her friends they’re like dogs with a bone when it comes to certain things. Absolutely relentless.

A part of her feels silly; she’s almost 27 for goodness sake, quite accomplished for her age – well she will be once her fashion designs fully take off, which she has a feeling will be soon, and yet here she is hiding herself away in her room as if she should be ashamed. She can practically hear Arya and Ygritte’s voice in her head, scolding her for acting so damn childish and holing herself away when this was supposed to be a chilled time away from the stress and busyness of work.

Just then her phone chimes, telling her she’s got a message, and a wide smile blooms on her face when she sees who it’s from. Myrcella Baratheon. Even though her older brother Joffrey was a complete waste of her time, and every time she thought back on their relationship (if she could even call it that) it made her cringe, the one thing she’d forever be grateful to him for was introducing them to each other. The two women had got on like a house on fire, and when Sansa had been looking for an assistant Myrcella had been one of her first choices.

The smile quickly fades from her face though, when she actually reads the message and realises the reason for her friend getting in touch. After Sansa’s initial feeling of anger has died down just a little bit, she types back furiously:

**What do you mean Will can’t model for us? We spoke to his agent months ago?!?!**

To Myrcella’s credit she replies within a few seconds.

_I know. Just got off phone w/ agent & apparently they’d double booked, and they can’t get out of it._

**And how do they expect me to find a model at such short notice. The show is in a fortnight!!**

_Okay, breathe, I can practically hear you stressing out from here. I’m driving up to the house now._

**You do realise I’m currently on holiday at the lake house????**

_Crap. Forgot. Send me directions and I’ll come up so we can sort this out._

_If you want, of course _

Sansa snorts. What she wants is to not have to deal with work while she’s away on holiday, but she’s starting to realise that seldom times does life give you what you want just like that. 

**I’ll send it in 5. There’s a little pub here so we can do dinner too, we have a lot to catch up on.**

_Sounds great, see you xoxo M_

She quickly sends her friend the address of the house, before finally deciding to get out of her bed and change into a pair of ripped jeans and a cute little shirt that she’d bought the last time her and Arya had gone shopping together. 

\--------

“Look who’s finally decided to grace us with her presence,” Arya announces when Sansa enters the kitchen, and even though Sansa knows she’s just teasing her, there’s something steely about her tone that makes Sansa aware her little sister is annoyed. 

Thankfully there’s only the five of them in the room; Robb, Margaery, Arya, Gendry, and of course herself, should things start to turn sour at all. She wonders where the others are, and when she asks she finds out from Arya that Sam, Gilly, Pyp, and Jon went out somewhere (because Jon’s been in a piss poor mood all morning – which Arya is sure has nothing to do with Sansa at all, but the look on her face suggests otherwise), Theon hasn’t been seen since last night so God knows where he is, and Ygritte rather randomly announced she was going for a swim in the sea in the morning and hasn’t been seen since. 

Once Arya’s finished filling Sansa in, her brother quickly cuts in, with a look of such concern on his face that it touches her deeply. “You alright, Sans?” 

“I’m fine,” she replies, giving him a small smile before she turns to rummage through the fridge for something to eat. “Work is just stressing me out right now.”

“Why, what’s happened?” 

She huffs and pulls out a plate of leftover pizza, her irritation from earlier starts to creep back and she ends up slamming the fridge door with more force than necessary, before turning around to face her brother. “One of the models has gone and cancelled on me, so now I have to find someone who is of the same height and weight as him to model my design.” 

“He’s cancelled just like that, so close to the show?”

“Yeah. Apparently, the agent double booked, but we got in contact with him months ago so I don’t understand how he could mess it up so bad.”

“What an idiot,” Arya rolls her eyes and mutters, Sansa finds herself agreeing with that judgement. 

“Well what does he look like, sweetie? Maybe I can ask around a few of my friends.” Margaery offers, and in that moment Sansa could have kissed her. Not that it was the complete answer to her stress, but if anyone could find her someone to model it’d be Margaery - given the fact that she herself is a model and it was mainly because of her that Sansa’s designs were discovered in the first place.

“Actually, he kind of looks like Robb, except just a teeny bit leaner and – ” Sansa suddenly pauses, tilting her head so that she’s looking directly at her big brother with wide, pleading eyes. Almost instantly his hands are up and he’s shaking his head. 

“No!”

“Robb, please…”

“Sansa, I can’t, I’m working!”

“It’ll be in the evening, I’ll even buy you dinner afterwards.” 

“Hey,” Arya interrupts, “I thought you were buying us all dinner after the show anyway?”

Sansa scoffs and rolls her eyes, briefly turning her gaze to fall on her sister. “You think I’m made of money? Besides, you all work, you can afford to pay for yourselves.” 

Before she can respond, Sansa’s already turning back to Robb and working her famous puppy dog expression. “Come on Robb, do you want me to beg?”

She ignores the calls of “make her beg” that come from both Arya and Gendry, honestly those two suit each other so well, and the soft chuckle that falls from Margaery’s lips as she turns her head and looks adoringly up at her boyfriend. 

“Okay, alright, fine. Fine I’ll do it.” Robb finally relents, and Sansa fights back the urge to squeal happily and jump up and down. “Don’t say I never do anything nice for you.”

“Oh, as if I’d say such a thing,” she teases, grinning widely as she moves to embrace her brother who at first acts as if he’s annoyed, but then gives up and slowly hugs her back. “You’ll always be my knight in shining armour,” she whispers in his ear, and at that he grins genuinely, it’s all he’s ever wanted to be. 

\------

“Gosh, I wish I had an older brother as sweet as yours,” Myrcella whines after Sansa tells her that Robb is going to be their substitute model, and she finds herself pitying her friend, it must be difficult growing up with a psychopath for an older brother. 

It’s only when Myrcella snorts and mutters, “you have no idea” that Sansa realises she’s spoken out loud. 

“At least you have Tommen, he kind of makes up for it right?” 

“Not… I mean, sure, he’s not as much of a dick as Joff is. But every girl dreams of having that big brother who looks after you and cares about you, y’know? The only person Joffrey looks after is himself, and even then not that well. Mother says,” her friend pauses and Sansa can see the unshed tears in her eyes, it makes her reach over the table and grab Myrcella’s hand comfortingly. “Mother says he’s probably digging himself into an early grave.”

Sansa feels herself frowning. There’s no love between her and Joffrey at all, but it doesn’t mean she can’t recognise the fact that he has people that care for him, one of whom happens to be one of her closest friends. “Oh ‘Ella, I am sorry.”

Her friend gives her a watery, half-apologetic smile before shrugging. “Sorry, this was meant to be a good time and here I am ruining it.”

Sansa shakes her head adamantly and tuts. “Don’t be silly. Just you being here is good for me.” With that, she gets up from the table and heads over to the bar to get them another round of drinks.

By the time they finish drinking and filling each other in on other things that have been going on in their lives, it’s gone midnight and they’re both a lot more drunk than they’d originally planned. It takes them longer than usual to pay for everything before eventually stumbling out into the cold night air. 

They’re halfway up the hill to the house, drunkenly nattering on about things that don’t make any sense, when Myrcella randomly stops walking and swears out loud. The sheer loudness and shock of such language leaving her friend’s mouth almost makes Sansa trip over herself. 

She sobers up fractionally and peers anxiously at her friend. “What?!”

“We forgot about my car!”

They stare at each other for a beat longer before they’re bursting out into a fit of giggles, Sansa curls an arm around Myrcella’s shoulder as they start walking again. “Your car will be fine overnight, trust me, this area is super-duper safe.”

Less than 10 minutes later and they finally arrive at the house. Even though Sansa’s drunk she still freezes a bit when she recognises Jon and Ygritte out the front, heads down as they smoke together and have some sort of hushed conversation. She’s always envied that about them, their ability to be exes and still get on so well, maybe better than they had when they were together.

When they see her walking up the driveway with Myrcella their conversation falls quiet, and Sansa has to fight to quieten that drunken paranoid voice in her head that says they were talking about her. As she gets nearer to them it’s no surprise that her gaze instantly, albeit briefly, lands on Jon, poor Jon who looks so tired and so guarded and is already watching her with slightly furrowed brows, his lips slightly parted as he takes another drag from his cigarette.

There are several words that come to the tip of her tongue, begging to be spoken by her, but she holds them down and instead forces a smile as she turns to Ygritte, hoping her words don’t come out too slurred or edgy when she says. “Don’t stop your conversation on our account.” 

A look of amusement crosses Ygritte’s features and she arches a brow, quickly pulling her own cigarette from her lips and tilting her head to exhale the smoke away from them. “You drunk, girl?”

Sansa scowls a little, she hates it when Ygritte calls her that, it makes her feel like she’s a teenager all over again. "So what if I am?" she asks, and plucks the cigarette dangling in-between her friend’s slender fingers and brings it to her own mouth so she can have a quick smoke. 

Ygritte shrugs, waits some minutes until Sansa's had enough drags from her cig, before taking it back from her. "No reason, just don't want you saying something that you'll regret in the morning. 

There's no real heat behind Ygritte's words, but Sansa can still hear the warning in them. Whereas Sansa is not much for confrontation when she's sober, when she's drunk it's like she's almost picking for arguments. It's a bad habit that she's been trying to get herself out of. From beside her Myrcella clears her throat lightly, but pointedly, and it makes Sansa aware of her presence. “Crap,” she says, turning to her friend with an apologetic expression. “This is Myrcella, ‘Ella this is Ygritte and Jon.” 

It’s only then that Sansa feels Jon’s eyes leave her and focus on her friend, whom he spares a small smile that never quite reaches his eyes, and sticks out his hand. 

Myrcella grins brightly and gives his hand a light shake, then responds to Ygritte's rather cool but still friendly nod. Afterwards she turns to Sansa and whispers loudly, not that she’s at all aware of it, so that both Ygritte and Jon can hear. “Is this the Jon you were telling me about?”

 _Bloody hell._

Sansa instantly feels her cheeks getting red and she wishes the earth would open and swallow her whole. She sneaks a peak at Jon whose facial expressions remain neutral, save for his mouth that twitches ever so slightly and his gaze that now looks out into the distance. He does that a lot, Sansa realises, and she wonders what he’s looking for in those moments.

She takes another slow pull from the cig, just to calm herself down, then hands it back to Ygritte who is trying hard not to show her interest and amusement. “Right," she declares with a clap of her hands, "I think it’s time for bed. See you two in the morning.”

“It was nice to meet you, Myrcella.”

“You too!” Her friend calls back happily, oblivious to the potential trouble she's caused, and starts walking up the steps towards the front door. 

Sansa moves to follow her, but as she passes Jon his fingers suddenly encircle around her wrist and prevent her from moving forward; her mouth parts open as she shoots him a confused look, a question on the tip of her tongue. 

“Can we talk tomorrow. Properly?” He asks, his voice low and careful. There’s an almost pleading look in his eye that takes her aback. 

She bites down on the inside of her cheek and nods. She’d always loved how upfront and honest Jon was when it came to the things he wanted. “If that’s what you want.”  


He nods once more, slowly letting go of her wrist, and Sansa feels herself desperately missing that small bit of warmth he’d given her. “Tomorrow then.”

She nods, her gaze staying on him for a second longer before she jogs up the steps and opens the door for both her and Myrcella. As they clumsily stumble up the stairs towards her bedroom, Sansa finds herself absent-mindedly stroking at her skin where Jon’s fingers had been.


End file.
